My Birthday Party
How my birthday party plan prayer was answered
Part story, part how-to. May this serve as a reference for those who are feeling guided into more intentional gathering.
Last month was my birthday. For the past few years, birthday celebrations have meant some form of a party at the house or going out to bars. This year of my life felt like a monumental shift in accepting who I am and what matters to me, and I wanted to honor that with my intention. I also personally have grown in my dislike of idly standing or sitting around and chatting, especially small talking. I wanted an active experience that brought us deeper.
I began planning about a month before, starting with what I wanted to honor most. The past year demonstrated to me how powerful and necessary it is to lean on my feminine community, to protect it, to grow it in depth and breadth, and to harness our power individually and collectively. I knew I wanted to focus on gathering women and create connections beyond myself.
For a few weeks I was kind of stuck there. A few other ideas came to mind: hike and yoga, visit Wood’s Hole, hire a private chef for a lovely meal at home. But I wanted it to be more involved, where people would feel a unique experience occurring around them and that they felt integral to. I wanted it to be ceremonial enough to honor the passing of my year, but also joyful and lighthearted since it was a party after all.
Feeling stuck, I prayed for an idea. I’ll take a moment here to note that praying doesn’t have to involve a dramatic fall to knees “Lord save me”. Sometimes when I’m working on my computer, feeling overwhelmed or distracted I’ll just close my eyes and say a little prayer to be directed to what I need to work on next.
From my prayer, I was given ideas of the elements, a mailed invitation, and people working together in small groups. The small groups served my highest intention of creating more intimate connections among a larger community. The mailed invitation contributed to a sense of slowness, mystery, physical presence, and commitment. The elements- fire, water, air, and earth- are a guide within my life, desiring to master the physical element and its spiritual essence, so it felt like an extension of me to form the party from this guide.
Prior to mailing an invitation, I created the small groups of people based on who already knew who, how, or who I wanted to spend more time together. I put each small group under an element team, sometimes based off what I knew of those peoples’ Sun sign, their shared experience, or what the task for the group would be. For example, the fire team were all people who went on a retreat to Shenandoah National Park with me in May, where we built fires together so I thought it would be cute to have them reunion around the fire.
My mom had told me of a party she went to years ago where everyone drew names to work on a team where they each made a recipe together. I loved this idea because it mixes up the social dynamic, and personally, I like to be a little materially engaged when hanging out, like playing a game, making something, etc. If I am sitting at a table and we are just chatting, I will probably too-quickly want to start talking about your childhood beliefs that shape your worldview and where you think we go after we die. So having something to focus on keeps it medium-light.
Anyway, it all clicked when realizing the earth team makes food, then the water team makes drinks, and the fire team makes fire, and the air team contributes the intangible.
So I had a frame to follow, and went back through the plan start to finish putting in details that would make sense later. I just love the feeling of being in an experience when you realize something that previously happened occurred for a later part of the plan. Layers. Godlike. Unfolding Mystery.
Back to the invitations: I put an icon of that person’s team on their card and told them to bring it to the party. I also asked each person to bring an item. Unbeknownst to them, it would contribute to another team’s success in their mission, e.g. asking a water person to bring fruit for the earth people or an earth person to bring firestarter for the fire people.
In the time between their invitation and the party, I also asked friends who lived too far to join to be a part of the clues. I asked my little brother to make a playlist to send to the airkeepers. I asked my best friend in California to send a clue to a Boone best friend in the waterkeepers. Each person who was asked to send a clue to a team was a mutual friend between me and that team, reminding us all of the web beyond us.
The invitation said the party started promptly at 6 pm, and so at 6 pm everyone showed up and walked a pathway lit by candles into my basement also lit by candles with a table in the middle. The table had four cards on it with the element icons. I told everyone to match their icon to a card on the table and stand behind it. From this, they identified their teams. Then I told them their first clue would be directly behind them. For each team, a candle sat next to a box, and inside the box there was a scroll. The scroll gave a riddle for where they would find their treasure chest with the goods for their task.
Off they went following clues around the house and into the dark outside. They found their boxes and got to work, while I moseyed around watching.
One by one, the teams were ready. We took a drink from the waterkeepers outside to the fire with the firekeepers, joined in a ceremony created by the airkeepers, and to close, enjoyed the feast of the earthkeepers. This all took about an hour and a half, and by that time, we moved easily in chatting in various pockets around the house. People felt ownership in the experience from their contribution, engaged with others from their team and task, and perhaps felt a little more connected to how the elements guide their lives.
My own experience of creating this experience was filled with joy at every step. It makes me think back to my senior year of art school when my thesis photography project was shaped into an experience beyond a gallery show. The photo content was of a moody, romantic lone woman wearing old wedding dresses near gravestones and abandoned houses, rather eery. I hung the photos in gold frames on clear string from the ceiling in a square in the center of the room, creating the feeling that they were floating. The lights dim, Erik Satie on the speaker, and words from “Gloomy Sunday” as my artist statement. It was an experience I think back to often as one of the proudest moments of my life.
Likewise, this birthday party instigated a pride and sense of purpose in my heart, a reminder of who I am, and an invitation to myself to create experience.
Notes:
Intention - The Art of Gathering book (link below) nails this again and again. Get super clear about your intention, whether it’s a craft night or a gala.
Paper invitation - Some told me they hadn’t received a birthday invitation by mail since childhood, or that since I asked for their mailing address, they were awaiting mail from me every day. We receive so many digital invites that I wanted to shift our attention somewhere else.
Gather with me: By The Moon Guided Gatherings for Women+
References
You are magical, Becca
tremendous beauty! grateful also to have played a minor role in the fun!